Story Highlights

The Rev. Bill Barnes famously repeated the mantra “Homogeneity is the enemy of affordable housing” every time I spoke with him this past year.

He warned against the concentration of poverty in neighborhoods as a detriment to the health and development of children, and he advocated for creating communities that embraced each other regardless of race or income.

A visionary. A rebel. An intellectual. An iconoclast. A hero.

Barnes, who died Monday, provided the moral leadership to face head-on the issue that dominates conversations in Nashville today: people’s ability (or inability) to afford to live here.

My colleague George Walker IV and I met with Barnes at his home in January when we were reporting the first part of the yearlong “Costs of Growth and Change” series.

He spoke his mantra about homogeneity and he created a path for us to understand the issue of housing and equity holistically — and he challenged us to stay focused on advocating for the least among us.

Barnes shared with me a copy of a series of articles from the 1960s by Tennessean reporter Rob Elder, who covered issues of public housing, segregation and quality of life.

The reverend explained that housing and segregation issues, be it by income or race, had been with us for quite a while. We left that conversation inspired and also daunted by the task ahead.

The longtime pastor of Edgehill United Methodist Church and lifetime affordable housing champion received the honor of having the city’s affordable housing trust fund named after him.

Mayor Megan Barry has invested record amounts of money into the Barnes Fund — $10 million per year over four years plus a $5 million supplement this past spring — to encourage developers to build affordable housing.

Barry also has advocated for neighbors to embrace a “Yes, in my backyard” (YIMBY) philosophy to mixed-income living.

Yet as Nashville’s prosperity rises, so does its inequality.

My observation reporting on the Costs of Growth and Change series is that people generally like the concept of YIMBY-ism as long as someone else has to live with it.

There is still so much work to do, but I am hopeful that Rev. Barnes’ words and wisdom will continue to guide our community and make us a more compassionate, welcoming and accepting society.

David Plazas is the deputy opinion and engagement director for the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee and opinion and engagement editor for The Tennessean. Call him at 615-259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.

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